Heart To Heart
by Undead Author
Summary: [[Sparrabeth]] Jack sits Elizabeth down and they have a little chat. Oneshot. Read and review, dur.


**Disclaimer: Why do I even need a disclaimer? If I owned Pirates, do you honestly think I'd be writing these?**

**A/N: I'm back with a vengeance! Yes, yes, your favorite PotC Fanfic author (Chyeah right) is back, but this time she's having a go at oneshots! I ****promise ****to update my other Fanfic (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End) as SOON as I get inspiration from my muse. But for now, enjoy the yummy, sugary Sparrabeth goodness. ;D**

**Oh, and Djibouti: Juh-booty. **

Elizabeth sat down jadedly on the steps leading to the _Black Pearl_'s upper deck, her head resting wearily in her hands. Ever since she had helped rescued Jack, she hadn't known what to think. She was tired of avoiding him, yet she couldn't bring herself to face the man she killed. She raised her heavy head to look at the night sky, and it was beautiful. The deck of the _Pearl_ was illuminated by the moon's natural radiance, and it seemed as if the whole ship itself was glowing. It looked like a ghost ship.

Elizabeth snorted. She felt like a ghost. Over the past week, she had eaten scarcely anything, and she didn't show much emotion to anything at all. She paced over to the side of the ship and looked over to the glassy surface of the ocean. Her golden hair fell to curtain her face as she saw herself in the water: her eyes were beginning to look sunken, her once full lips were paling and thin, and her cheekbones were more prominent than ever. She raised a hand to her cheek and muttered, "Oh, Elizabeth, what are you doing to yourself?"

"I've been wondering the same thing, love." Jack's voice startled her, and Elizabeth shuddered. She turned to face him.

"Hello, Captain Sparrow," she said faintly, but it was a wonder she could speak at all with her heart pounding like King George's men's drums.

Jack smirked. "No need for the formalities, love." Elizabeth didn't respond to this. She brushed past him and resumed her "post" on the steps.

Jack swaggered to where she was sitting, and he joined her. "Why so glum?" he asked, cocking his head. Elizabeth's eyes narrowed and she bit the inside of her cheek.

"I—I don't know." She was lying through her teeth, she knew perfectly well why she was acting the way she was.

"Oh, you don't? I think you do, Miss Swann. I think you do know why, you just"—he shrugged—"don't want to tell me."

"Is that what you think?" Elizabeth said, looking at him with certain resign in her eyes.

Jack nodded. "Certainly. I believe you're hiding something from me."

Elizabeth turned to face him. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them. "I don't have anything to hide from you."

"Well, maybe not from myself, but you're hiding something from yourself." His eyes shimmered in the moonlight. "Hiding the truth."

"Oh? What truth would this be?"

"The truth that I know and you know. The only difference between the two of us knowing it is that I can see it in plain prospect, whilst you tend to hide it from yourself and the rest of the world. Savvy?" Elizabeth raised a brown eyebrow. This ought to be good, she thought bemusedly.

"You, Elizabeth, are about to make the biggest mistake of your life."

Elizabeth couldn't help it. "Letting you live?"

Jack sighed. "No. You can't marry William." She wasn't expecting this to come up in their conversation.

"Why can't I?" she managed to ask.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Do I have to explain everything myself? Isn't there anything you can muster to think up on your own?"

Elizabeth fumed at this. How dare he insult her intelligence like that! "You're a waste of my time."

She started to get up, but Jack grabbed her wrist, and she couldn't suppress the delightful shiver she experienced every time they touched. Jack smirked, knowing the hold he had over her for the time being. "Wait. Just…wait."

She looked at him and bit her lip. Why was she doing this? Why wasn't she sleeping? She grudgingly let him seat her beside him, closer than they were before. "You can't marry Will because he's not what you want."

"How would you know what I want and don't want?"

Jack shook his head. "You're easier to read than you know, Lizzy. I see you every time you look out at the ocean. I know what you want."

"What's that, then?"

Jack's features softened. "You want to be free. You long for adventure, to do the things you'd never dare to do if you were the housewife of a blacksmith. You love it here."

Elizabeth looked away from him. How could he know her so well? Why was it that he could read things from her face that she couldn't read from her soul?

"Want to know how I know?" Jack took her face and turned it so she was facing him. "'Cause I was exactly like you. I wasn't always a pirate. I worked for Cutler Beckett." Elizabeth raised an eyebrow; she couldn't see him working for the East India Trading Company, under rules and regulations. He ignored her and continued, "I thought I was livin' the life, too, mind you. I had money, a good ship," he patted the _Pearl_ lovingly, "everything you could possibly ever want. But then one day Beckett asked me to transport some slaves from some tiny country in Africa to England." He frowned. "Djibouti, I think it was. Anyway, I sailed to the slave port in Djibouti, and I picked up some slaves. And, Elizabeth…" He blinked four or five times, and shook his head. "Elizabeth, there were women, and children, and babies. I couldn't let Beckett kill these people in these awful conditions. It was bloody hot, by the way. June or July. I couldn't stand to see these people just waiting to be exploited for such an awful purpose. I decided then an' there that I would not work for the East India Trading Company. I let the slaves go in Africa."

Elizabeth couldn't help smiling. "You _are_ a good man."

Jack shrugged. "I'm a pirate now, aren't I?"

Elizabeth sighed. "I suppose you're right…I can't marry Will." Jack threw his hands to the heavens. "Finally! She sees the light!" She ignored this outburst. "But I can't tell Will." Jack's hands fell to his side and he looked at her. "And why can't you?"

"Will is so loving, so…" she searched for a word, "so wholesome. So chaste. I don't think I can give him the life he wants. I'm not good enough for him."

Jack frowned and cupped her head in his steady hands. "_Never_ think that, love. It's he who's not good enough for you, love. You need someone who won't crush your willingness to run, to be free."

"I don't want to break his heart. He's my best friend."

"He's my friend too, Elizabeth! He can take it. He'll need to get over you. Marry Anamaria, something like that."

Elizabeth's vision started to blur as tears clouded her reasoning. "Oh, Jack, I just can't tell him. It'll break his heart. He'll never talk to me again." She rested her head on his shoulder and cried softly. It was an emotional night.

Jack stroked her hair. "Shh, shh. Hush now. He'll be alright. Just calm down. Calm down." He nestled his head in the hollow of her neck, and Elizabeth resisted another shiver.

After a while in that position, Elizabeth raised her head from his shoulder. "Jack, where am I going to find a person that will let me be free?"

Jack looked at her with soft eyes and a smile. "Oh, I think I know a chap who'd be perfect for you." And with that, the space between their faces was eliminated for the second time that week.


End file.
